#paul eisen | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spacedoutman · 21 days

Text

【𝖂𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖜𝖔𝖑𝖋 𝖉𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖒𝖘 | 𝕬 𝖐𝖎𝖘𝖘 𝖆𝖚】

(𝕻𝖆𝖗𝖙 no)

"A p air of golden eyes cut through black. Paul looked up, he couldn’t help but to grin wider. Joy sent his heart thudding at lightning speed. His grin could only grow. The eyes got bigger. Paul trembled like mad."

Description: With the misterious death of his family, Paul Stanley dreams of a life where he never has to worry about anything again. Notorious werewolf Peter Criss can give it to him--but will the sacrifice be too much to bear?

♥ Paul Stanley x Peter Criss

Note: Thank you guys for voting on the poll! I left this mostly unedited and got the ship through an internet wheel. Hope you enjoy! This is part 1 of until I can't take take it anymore

Warnings: Grief

Tears glinted in the sprinkle of moonlight touching his soft face, smearing his makeup as they rolled down his cheeks. He held himself as tight as his arms would let him before snapping. His sobbing drowned out crickets chirping and whatever night animal hung around—well, of course. They’d all probably been scared away by now.

Stanley Bert “Paul Stanley” Eisen pressed his sleeve against his eyes. Wet. Those big eyes sure held a lot of tears. His shoulders jolted. He hugged the steering wheel like a lover and slammed his face into it. His nose almost shattered. His heart writhed. His entire family misteereyusleeh was dead and he found himself out here again.

“People, let me get this off my chest!” He sobbed.

He swept his Iphone out of his pocket. His best roommate’s contact shook as badly as his hand. His throat clenched. His vision blurred. The phone slipped, crashing onto the crackled cement. He threw himself against the car door, which flew open. His body hit the cement with the force of an airplane. Searing pain exploded in his body as every pebble pierced.

“Rock n’ roll!”

He pulled himself up.

Deep green trees surrounded him like an army. He narrowed his eyes. Darkness his between every trunk and bush. His legs wobbled as he stumbled forward. All he wanted to do was cry, that’s all he could do. He looked around, furrowing his brows as a wildfire boomed inside. He had to eat, but there was no food in the car. Why couldn’t he stay out here forever?

He could. Paul ha come out here for a very specific reason. His phone howled in his pocket. He weakly reached down, jamming it between his shoulder and ear as he glared into the darkness.

“Paul.” His ear vibrated as a dark voice rang through. “Have you made it? I smell your presence..”

“I made it.” Paul’s own shaky voice filled his ears. “You.. you’re going to let me live out my dreams?”

“Yes.”

Paul’s eyes turned wild. A weary grin crawled on his lips.

“My wildest werewolf dreams?”

A p air of golden eyes cut through black. Paul looked up, he couldn’t help but to grin wider. Joy sent his heart thudding at lightning speed. His grin could only grow. The eyes got bigger. Paul trembled like mad.

“I’m here, Stanley. To give you the gift of the wild.”

#werewolf #crack #shitpost #fanfiction #alternative universe #paul stanley #peter criss #kiss band

10 notes · View notes

starry-eyed-never-satisfied · 26 days

Note

Fanfic Writer Ask Game: 😅 🤡 🛒 🍦🤗🧠🤲✅🤯 sorry if this is a lot lol

No worries I love asks and talking about my writing, so the more the merrier!

😅 What's a story or scene you've created that you're a smidge embarrassed exists?

The only one I really feel weird about is Tonight I Wanna See It In Your Eyes. Just cause it's so short and doesn't go into enough detail on what I was trying to portray. I did it for writers month and tried to write it in a day, which I can't do. I love the idea though and I fully intend to expand it more one day.

🤡 What's a line, scene, or exchange you've written that made you laugh?

Driving On Down The Road and reason why Butt Fuck Nowhere is called that, and the whole of 100.000 Years, it's just so silly, but I really can picture them having that whole interaction.

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

Always angst, I can't help it. Paul's sensitivity and vulnerability, Gene's tough but caring.

🍦 What's the sweetest fic you've created so far?

Hold Me. No smut, just Paul in a dark place and Gene not knowing how to help, but still being there for him.

🤗 What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?

Don't feel like you need to start from the beginning. Write whatever it is that has inspired you, whether it be a scene or phrase. If you get to a bit where you want a particular thing to happen but don't know how to write it just type insert smut here or insert fight here or whatever and go on to the next bit. After you've written the stuff you're confident with it's much easier to fill in the gaps.

🧠 Pick a character, and I'll tell you my favorite headcanon for them.

Here's a bittersweet head cannon about Paul and Ace for you. Neither of them will admit it, but they were close, and after Peter left they became closer. Paul didn't want Ace to leave and tried to keep him happy, even drinking with him on occasion. But he didn't want to get blackout drunk like Ace did, so it wasn't very successful. The pictures from The Elder/Creatures period, where they are holding onto each other - that's Paul silently saying don't go. But it was inevitable. And everything they have said since then comes from a place of hurt.

🤲 Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

Because you liked Let Me Know so much, this is a follow up to it, called Far From The House And The Family Fights in which teenage Paul has a fight with his parents and runs away to Gene.

“We received a letter from school today, Stanley.”

Stanley. That meant he was in trouble. Even so, Paul rolled his eyes and headed towards his room.

“You are not going anywhere, young man!”

Stanley and young man. He was in a shitload of trouble!

“You are going to stay here and explain yourself! You are on the verge of failing. You haven’t done any homework and have been missing classes. You’ve been drawing . . . penises in your schoolbooks. And you told your teacher you didn’t need school because you are going to be a . . . rock star?”

Oops. He hadn’t mentioned that particular ambition to his parents yet.

“What happened to you?” asked his father. “You had so much potential.”

“God gave you this wonderful brain and you’re not using it,” said his mother.

Paul had heard this so many times before, and this time he lost it.

“Did he give me this stupid fucking ear too? Because I’ll happily trade my brain for a real one!”

“Stanley Eisen! Mind your language!”

✅ What's something that appears in your fics over and over and over again, even if you don't mean to?

Angst! Even when I try to write something happy or funny the angst creeps in. I don't want Paul to be unhappy all the time.

🤯 What's a genre you struggle with as a writer (ex. romance, action, etc.)?

Fight scenes. Arguments I can do, but when it comes to the physical stuff I struggle. While I believe these guys probably did get into punch ups occasionally, I can't really visualise them, I've only seen fights on tv and we know how realistic those are lol

#thanks for the ask!

7 notes · View notes

goldammerchen · 4 months

Text

@makwandis, found it: "Prussia was always an unfree state" (Erbe und Erinnerung – Preußen 2001/2002)

Original Language (+ more quotes):

Nicht nur der Toleranzmythos wurde relativiert, auch warfen manche Autoren die Frage nach der geistigen Verwandtschaft zwischen totalitären Systemen des 20. Jahrhunderts und Preußen neu auf. Bemerkenswert war in diesem Zusammenhang ein Essay des Ostberliner Schriftstellers Rolf Schneider in der konservativen Berliner Tageszeitung »Berliner Morgenpost«.[13] Darin schrieb Schneider:

»Der Nationalsozialismus folgte nicht zwingend aus dem Preußentum, doch vieles von dem, was er kultivierte und worauf er fußte, die Aggressivität, der Zentralismus, der Gehorsam, war in Preußen tief verankert. Sofern staatsbürgerliche Freiheit nicht denkbar ist ohne Demokratie, war Preußen stets ein unfreier Staat. Erich Honeckers deutsche Leninisten waren also gut beraten, als sie, spät genug, Preußen für sich entdeckten, um sich seine Überlieferungen nutzbar zu machen.«

Also good quotes from Staat von Blut und Eisen:

Preußen war schon immer für Mythen und Legenden unterschiedlichster Art gut. Auf den Hohenzollernstaat und seine Traditionen beriefen sich in den letzten 300 Jahren Reformer und Reaktionäre, Monarchisten und Demokraten, Junker und Industrielle, Liberale und Konservative, Nationalsozialisten und Widerstandskämpfer.

Es war die preußische Mischung aus Ost und West, aus Aufklärung und Absolutismus, aus Fortschritt und Rückständigkeit, aus Zivilisation und Barbarei, die so gegensätzliche Lager zu Bewunderern Preußens machte. Die gleiche explosive Mixtur ließ Preußen allerdings auch zum meistgehassten deutschen Staat werden.

Der preußische Adler trug Zeit seines Lebens einen Januskopf.

Preußen wurde ein Freistaat in der Weimarer Republik, und was jetzt, ohne die Hohenzollern, kam, waren die besten Jahre in der preußischen Geschichte; zum Bestandteil des Preußenmythos zählten sie leider nie. (…)

Das andere, reaktionäre Preußen gab es allerdings auch noch, und als die Weimarer Republik in die Krise geriet, zeigte es seine hässliche Fratze. 1932 ließ sich Reichskanzler Franz von Papen, ein ehemaliger preußischer Kavallerie-Offizier, von Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg, einem ehemaligen preußischen Generalfeldmarschall, ermächtigen, per Staatsstreich in Preußen die Macht zu übernehmen.

Papen träumte von einem autoritären Einheitsstaat, doch mit seinem »Preußenschlag« machte er nur den Weg frei für Hitlers Griff nach der Macht.

#ref #hws prussia #gn for real sorrryyy

6 notes · View notes

notafraidofredyellowandblue · 1 year

Text

Flake's podcast - Crying /Weinen

podcast on 2023-05-09, the YT link also has the songlist in the description 🌺

youtube

'Weinen' this time, translated into english as Crying, but as Flake mentions, Crying can be both the kind with tears and 'shouting'. But he too would translate it as Crying, like at the very start where Flake starts a long 'Cryyyyy Baby' (tee dum dum) 😊 as an introduction by the song by Janis Joplin, he even sings along with Janis's intro for a few notes 😊

Right at the very beginning also an offhand remark, which has nothing to do with the topic, about his friend Paulo back in the old days singing a song in the schoolyard that Flake didn't know (Paulo had all kinds of different albums) and only years later found it which song it was. When they play and record a new song with the band, Flake heard the music so often that he doesn't even need to hear it anymore, because he's got it all in his head, but with Paulo's song he didn't know the musicand couldn't make sense of the song 🌺

Flake's playlist today feels a little shorter than usual, but i think it's because there are several longer songs on it, including, from 0h08 two Rolling Stones songs, and at 0h58, almost traditionally for Flake's podcast, a song by Die Ärzte 'Und ich weine' (Flake mentioned in an earlier podcast that Die Ärzte seem to have a song for every topic he comes up with 😊).

A very untranslatable phrase at 1h24 when he mentions he would like some German artist would make an album with songs just for kids (just like Johnny Cash did, who he plays right before), and says he already has a great bit of potential lyric from his daughter who told him "Sitzt ein Kuckuck auf ein Baum, kommt ein Hai forbei. Der sagt 'Kuckuck' zu dem Kuckuck, der sagt 'Hi' zum Hai" (which indeed has a great ring to it to use in a kid's song). Right after, Flake follows with a quote from 'our guitarist Paul' who said "Ich hab dich so lieb, aus Zeitungsvertrieb" (which i guess might have been 'Zeitvertrieb' (passtime), because now it translates to "I love you a lot as newspaper distribution" 🤔), which Flake thinks is 'Total Geil' as a poem, but he thinks Paul might just have reading an advertising slogan on a truck 😄 (by the way, i can confirm that German trucks often have great slogans on them 😊). And friend Paulo (another mention for him) made a short poem "Mein Name ist 'Na und'. Ich bin nicht ganz gesund" (it sounds weird in translation, so i'll skip it 😄), which Flake thinks it's so great he could almost cry. And so we are back on topic 😊

The duality in the word 'Cry' is shown best through the song by german singer-songwriter Bettina Wegner 'No woman no cry' (at 0h32), and because i really liked it, i found you a version of it on YT

youtube

Now i hear you thinking "uhm... notafraidofetcetc...did Flake maybe mention Rammstein a little bit somewhere?" 😊 why yes, he did 😊 After abt 0h23) the song 'Marmor, Stein und Eisen bricht' by Drafi Deutscher (in Germany a very well known song), which has the words 'Dam, Dam' as a sort of countervocal, well those words were considered as the title for 'our last album that didn't get a name' (which is obviously the Untitled album, i think Flake forgot for a minute that they published another album after that 🌺 'Letzte' (which is the phrase he uses) can mean Latest and Last, but as we know now it was neither...but i digress). They did use the 'Dam dam' quote in the song 'Puppe' as in 'I tear the head off the doll, dam dam' because they thought it sounded perverse in the Marmor Stein und Eisen song, the used it for the perversion in Puppe. But in the end 'Dam Dam' wasn't used as album title, Flake muses "when i like something, it's a sure sign that 4 or 5 of the others won't like it".

This leads to the next song, which is 'a song by us' that has to do with 'Weinen', namely 'Wilder Wein' (which is interesting that he uses this, usually the translation of 'Wein' in this case is 'Wine', so either he's taking some liberty with the topic, or we've all been translating it wrong) (my guess is the former 😊). This is a song that Till pretty much came up with, as Flake tells us at 0h24, Till mainly makes music to impress women 😄 With 'First Arsch' he played drums, which is fine for concerts, but at parties you rarely have a drumkit at hand. However a piano often is there, so he came up with a small melody played with the left hand (not that Flake means this in a derogatory way, he really likes the song) and just with the white keys, which basically plays itself "you just have to let your fingers twitch a bit". So this is pretty much an 'impress women' song 😄. (The 'pan flute' sound in it, Flake borrowed from the Stephan Remmler song 'Vogel der Nacht', because he liked it and figured, he'd put it in 😊). Little glimpses behind the scenes of how Rammstein songs are made 🥰

youtube

🎹

more of my takes on Flake's podcasts

#flake's podcast #des tastenfickers podcast #flake lorenz #rammstein #Youtube

18 notes · View notes

ultra-francesca-mercury · 3 months

Text

january 20, 1952

Paul Stanley of Kiss is born Stanley Harvey Eisen in Queens, New York.

#almanaccomercury #paul stanley

3 notes · View notes

jules-has-notes · 6 months

Text

APAP 2014 — VoicePlay live performances

When the VoicePlay guys made their annual trip to NYC for the 2014 Association of Performing Arts Professionals conference, they also did an off-site show at Stage 48 (now HK Hall). It was part regular concert and part shakedown cruise. Emoni Wilkins was about to join them for the upcoming Sing-Off tour, so they wanted to try out some possible songs for their new setlist. It was also a bit of a reunion. The ladies of Element welcomed the boys to their hometown by opening for them.

[WARNING: This video contains flashing lights starting at 2:17.]

youtube

This song got a fantastic reception when they performed it on The Sing-Off, so it's no surprise that they wanted to get it tour-ready. Tweaking the arrangement to make it less of a solo piece was a great decision.

Details:

title: Play That Funky Music

original performers: Wild Cherry

written by: Rob Parissi

arranged by: VoicePlay

My favorite bits:

turning the lead vocal into a duet / duel between Eli and Emoni that is super fun

simplifying the choreography for a smaller stage

Layne's tasty beat under the rap section

"Uh-uh, baby."

the riff tutorial bit

Trivia:

VoicePlay originally performed this song on the second episode of The Sing-Off with Honey Larochelle.

They later recorded this arrangement with Emoni for the deluxe edition of their "Collide" album of collaborations with other competitors from The Sing-Off season 4.

youtube

This clip cuts off before the big finish, but what he did get is darn entertaining. Heck, this song is always a blast when VoicePlay performs it, because their interactions are always a little different.

Details:

title: Elvira

original performers: The Oak Ridge Boys

written by: Dallas Frazier

arranged by: Geoff Castellucci

My favorite bits:

both Eli and Tony prodding Earl to take the lead, and Earl being a little extra forceful with Geoff about it

Tony working the audience during his solo

the "Earl can go deep, too" gag gets me every time 😆

Eli doing the "I see you" gesture at someone in the audience

Earl running out of steam on the long note sooner than usual and having some off-mic banter with Geoff about it

"You know it's live when our faces look like that. #HighNotesHurt"

Trivia:

VoicePlay haven't released a studio version of this song to the public because it's such a live performance piece, but there is an audio recording available to their Patreon supporters.

They didn't end up including this in their setlist for the first Sing-Off tour, but it did make the cut for the second.

youtube

This is the roughest of the songs from that night, and a pretty good indication of why they didn't include it in their setlist for the tour. It definitely has some great moments, but the arrangement they'd tailored to Honey's voice just wasn't as comfortable for Emoni, and that's okay. That's what shakedowns are for.

Details:

title: Lady Gaga medley – ARTPOP

original songs / performer: all songs by Lady Gaga – "Aura"; [0:30] "Venus"; [1:14] "Do What U Want" featuring Christina Aguilera; [2:09] "Gypsy"; [2:24] "Applause"

written by: all songs by Stefani "Lady Gaga" Germanotta & collaborators – "Aura" with Anton "Zedd" Zaslavski, Erez Eisen, & Amit Duvdevani; "Venus" with Paul "DJ White Shadow" Blair, Hugo Pierre "Madeon" Leclercq, Dino Zisis, Nick Monson, and Sun Ra; "Do What U Want" with R. Kelly, Paul "DJ White Shadow" Blair, Martin Bresso, & William Grigahcine; "Gypsy" with Hugo Pierre "Madeon" Leclercq, Nadir "RedOne" Khayat, & Paul "DJ White Shadow" Blair; "Applause" with Paul "DJ White Shadow" Blair, Dino Zisis, & Nick Monson

arranged by: Layne Stein

My favorite bits:

Earl's smirk when he sings ♫ "garden panties" ♫ 😏

the little swell on the final ♫ "this could be looove" ♫

Eli's smooth diction through the rap section

their cohesion on the record-skip effect

the choreographed spins to draw attention to each singer as they layer into "Gypsy"

Tony getting into his groove during "Applause" with that pop timbre and those body rolls

the little ramp-up sound Layne makes going into the final section

Trivia:

VoicePlay originally recorded this medley with Honey Larochelle as part of their "Collide" album of collaborations with other Sing-Off season 4 competitors.

youtube

Now this arrangement was (quite literally) made for Emoni's voice and it shows. I'm sure not having to learn it from scratch made things much easier. This clip is missing the very beginning, but it's still a great time.

Details:

title: Can't Believe It

original performers: Flo Rida, featuring Pitbull [NOTE: The original lyrics and video are a fair bit racier than VP’s version.]

written by: Tramar "Flo Rida" Dillard, Armando "Pitbull" Pérez, Mike Caren, Luca Ciampi, Breyan Isaac, William Lobban-Bean, & Alexander Williams

arranged by: Layne Stein, Geoff Castellucci, & Hannah Juliano

My favorite bits:

seeing what choreography they added, since they were sitting in the original video

Geoff's meaty "wub-wub"s during the breakdown section

the boys obediently (and a little goofily) following Emoni's instructions from the lyrics

that big old riff

♫ "Boop." ♫

Layne's rhythmic shoulder wiggle as the others sing ♫ "how big that booty is" ♫

that smooth ending

photo by Kat Hennessey

Trivia:

The boys and Emoni initially recorded this song as part of VoicePlay's "Collide" album of collaborations with other Sing-Off season 4 competitors.

#VoicePlay #Emoni Wilkins #a cappella #live performance #APAP 2014 #music #video #long post

4 notes · View notes

keefsteef · 2 years

Note

all four of em 😭 i love them all dearly but they also deserve whatever you throw at them

VINCENT JOHN CUSANO what in the i-got-manhandled-during-the-capitol-seige helllll is that shirt 🗿 I love a good ripped/tattered moment, but that little string of rip hanging on his arm and the attempted crop isn't doing it for me, nor are the stripes.

I love his pants and his belt, the pants look leather, so if he had a sleeveless black leather vest on to match with the black of the belt, and a SILVER neck tie to match with the silver crust of the other belt, it'd of been a serve. It'd of also complimented his eyes and complexion.

STANLEY BERT EISEN your gorgeousness and all-in-your-face bulge isn't about to derail me this time! I don't know if he was trying to have a little moment with Vincent with that red belt and wrist tie, but if I saw him by himself, RED AND CHEETAH?! 🗿.

So obviously goodbye to the belt. But that shirt is actually working for him, it's wonderful on his skin and the fact his hair is contrasting the black of the shirt is great, too. I almost feel like a darker wash of jeans wouldn't have hurt. Maybe a dark grey.

And if he wanted a belt and wrist wrap so badly, he could have made it a creamier color than the base of the cheetah shirt, it would've definitely gave me exotic but not neurotic if you know what I mean, because honestly red and cheetah is neurotic and DASTARDLY!

And I'd also snatch whatever that is hanging out of his shirt out.

CHAIM WITZ GENE SIMMONS is obviously a very simple and to the point lad here, and while I can't knock that, I can be angry that he didn't at least give us a necklace-that-matched-the-jacket moment 🗿 or at least a tie like Vincent has going. Coordination, GENE. But he really didn't leave me much to get angry at, congratulations to your babe.

ERIC-PAUL CHARLES CARAVELLO I mean if I even tried to talk trash I'd be reaching because there's really not much to talk about, he didn't commit any fashion crime from what I see here, it seems to be white tiger print and Paul has on cheetah, so that's coordinated!

Although the belt, I would have made it Vincent's style with a flat square buckle, and gave him a square buckle necklace, just for a pop so it's not bland.

Okay that concludes our kiss fashion show 😩😩😩✨ make a time machine so I can go be a stylist and make my coins.

#asks #kiss band

15 notes · View notes

hellchildjavo · 1 year

Text

Stanley Bert Eisen better known as Paul Stanley (born January 20, 1952)

5 notes · View notes

thestarchildtweets · 1 year

Text

#kiss band #paul stanley #thestarchildtweets #kiss army #kiss #rip william eisen #william eisen

8 notes · View notes

ohblackdiamond · 1 year

Text

life and life only (paul/victoria) (pg-13) (part 17 of ?)

Mermaid AU. Paul lives in isolation in a sunken ship with his sister, until a new mer comes by to see his ship, and he starts to reassess the human world, and vie for stardom within it.

In this chapter: Victoria finally confesses her past in the human world to Paul.

She brought him plants the next day, when they met for brunch. A ficus (he recognized it because Bill had one in his office), paperwhites, and a cutting of a small vined plant striped with purple and green.

“I don’t know what it is,” she admitted. “One of my friends gave me a cutting of it a couple months ago, though. It should root before you go to Hawaii. It grows like crazy, even when I forget to water it.”

He was hoping he could get her to come with him. He could imagine the look on Peter’s face when he met him by the gate with Victoria on his arm.

“Thanks.” He couldn’t help but touch the leaves of each plant, checking even the undersides of the leaves and the stems for signs of disease, disease he didn’t even know how to combat here. A garden on land would be so different to a garden in the ocean, he knew. But they all looked healthy and whole. He pointed to the purple cutting. “Will that one be okay if I leave it in the water for a week?”

“I’m not sure. You can try.” Victoria paused. “I’d put it in some potting soil as soon as it rooted if I were you, though, to stabilize it.”

He nodded.

“I haven’t got anything for you.”

“You got me brunch.”

“That’s nothing.” He was only nibbling at the pancakes and scones on his plate. He had a sudden craving for smoked salmon-- not an offering at this restaurant-- and tried to settle for some bacon instead. It was a pretty lousy substitute. Six years here now and he still only really liked the fish and sweets of the human world.

Six years. How long had she been in the human world now? Had she landlocked? How long was it, really? Ace had made that wild claim years ago, about her being born human, but-- he couldn’t ask her to confirm. He didn’t have the words to.

“Would you like to come by my place? It’s not very far.”

“Paul--”

“It’s beautiful. It’s real beautiful, I think you’d like it.” His mouth crooked up slightly. “And if you hate it, I’ll tear it all down once I get my next advance.”

She didn’t hate his apartment. That was a relief, because he still felt like he had all those years ago, when he’d shown her his ship. The antiques looked worn, and the Tiffany lamp looked tawdry. It never felt good enough around anyone, and it certainly didn’t feel good enough for her.

The two of them put the plants she’d brought him by the kitchen windowsill. Everything was almost untouched in that area from when he’d last gotten it designed and redesigned. In fact, there was barely any food in the kitchen, apart from some Tabs, cereal, and an untouched six-pack of beer.

“I get everything delivered,” he had to admit. “I’m on the road so much, I’m barely ever here. I-in fact, I was… it hasn’t been all that long since I was still staying with the Eisens.”

“You stayed with them for years, and you still call them that.”

“That’s what they are.” He got a glass from the cabinet, filling it up with water from the tap as he spoke. Despite what she’d said, the purple and green cutting already looked wilted.

“They took care of you.”

“I rented a room from them,” he said shortly, watering each of the plants in turn. “I like Mrs. Eisen okay. She liked me. Her husband didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“I dunno. I dunno that I’d like getting some teenager dumped on me, either. I dunno that he even likes pretending I’m his son. He ought to. I bought them a house last year.”

“Do you hear from Julia?”

“Not much.”

“You said she was going to have a baby.” Victoria had perched herself on the kitchen counter. If he squinted, he could almost see her back so many years ago, sitting with him on the Lord Stanley’s smokestack. “Did she?”

“Yeah. A little girl.”

“Do you see her?”

“I’ve only seen her once.” He didn’t know why Victoria was picking subjects like that. His cousin, his sister, his niece. He’d given her that rundown the night before. Maybe he was getting too used to being able to brush off difficult conversations, to steer them away like a nosy interviewer. “Julia doesn’t want to see me, okay? She only reached out to help her kid. Nothing really changed.”

Victoria looked like she was about to smile.

“Nothing, huh?”

“She doesn’t…” he trailed, suddenly hopeless. “People get funny, y’know? The roadies will do anything for you, the management, the hotel people… the fans, everything. They make you think you’re above it all. But when I saw her and Erica, I was right back down to being myself again.”

“That wasn’t such a bad self, Paul.”

“You don’t get it. I wasn’t some rockstar to her. I wasn’t somebody to be looked up to. I was just her deaf kid brother. That’s all I’d ever be to her. I’d just gotten a little money, that was all.”

Victoria pursed her lips, hoisting herself from the countertop back to the lacquered wood floor. She reached for his arm.

“You can’t change people’s perceptions. They have to do that for themselves.”

“I guess.” Funny how he could still talk to her like before. Be nakedly honest. Truth was at such a premium in his world now. He shrugged, trying to shake off his own thoughts, or at least, keep them from circling around the same sorry subject. “How’s your family, Victoria? You never really talk about anyone but Omar.”

“Oh, they’re all fine. It was my mom and stepfather’s anniversary two weeks ago.”

“I didn’t even know you had a stepfather.”

“My parents divorced when I was a kid,” she said shortly. “Come on now. You’re slacking on your grand tour, Paulie.”

And there it was. One single offhand comment. Just enough to send his heart into an offbeat rhythm, for all the wrong reasons. He looked over at her, unable, unwilling to stop himself.

“Mer don’t divorce, Victoria. They don’t even marry. They mate off. If something happens, the ’maid goes back with her kids to her parents’ ship. But they never divorce.”

“My parents landlocked. I told you.”

“When you were a kid? They couldn’t have done it when you were a kid. They couldn’t have taken you with them.” The words dropped like pebbles out of his throat. He had suspected for so long that something was wrong. Ever since seeing that photo. “VICKI, AGE 6, 1955” had burned in his brain for years before Ace had said a word. “You told me you weren’t from my part of the ocean. I always tried to believe you. But you didn’t grow up in the ocean at all, did you, Victoria?”

“Paul--”

“Why rail me over the interviews when you never even told me where you came from? Never told me about your parents, or you, or--”

“Paul, please, listen--”

“You said you never liked lying anymore than you had to. But you lied to me. You didn’t tell me.” Paul swallowed hard. “I always showed you my whole world, every lousy bit of it, and you couldn’t even–”

“Paul!”

Her face was waxy, blue eyes watering up.

“I’ll tell you. I’ve always owed you that.”

Her parents were raised off the Connecticut coast, on sunken ships whose names Paul didn’t recognize. Her father had set off for New York when he was seventeen. Her mother had done the same at eighteen, more than a decade later, just after the war.

At the time, there was a sort of enclave of a few hundred mer in the Manhattan area. How long it had been there, Victoria didn’t know. Some had intermarried with the humans-- generally, the immigrant humans, Jewish, Italian, and so on, who were less likely to question their lack of a history, their eccentricities. But often enough, one landlocked mer would marry another who’d recently come ashore. So it was with Victoria’s parents, who had never met in the sea. Her father had gotten her mother established with a job and apartment; in turn, her mother married him after a two year courtship. In another two years, Victoria was born, there in a proper hospital like any human.

Nothing was wrong. Nothing seemed wrong. Her parents worked on Broadway. Milton was a stage manager; Janet was an actress and a singer. At six they had maneuvered Victoria into her first performances.

“Mom was insistent on that. She wanted that opportunity for me.” Victoria wasn’t looking at Paul at all as she spoke. “It was fun. I was even on a record for a children’s choir.”

She would take her to model for catalogs, too. Her mother would roll her stick-straight hair into tight curls, bemoaning how the honey-blonde locks were slowly going light brown and ordinary. Victoria never cared for the bright lights and the stiff poses in the studio. But the stage was different, more intimate. Closer to what she really thought she wanted.

“Then, when I was eleven, I started getting sick. I was in bed for two weeks. I started having problems with my skin.” Victoria was saying it very slowly, very carefully. Only the glassiness in her eyes was betraying her now. “I’d always had a birthmark on my leg. I still do. That little red one I showed you.”

Paul nodded. He was feeling sick to his stomach already.

“It started to get bigger. I was getting this patching all over my legs. My parents took me to all these doctors, and they couldn’t figure it out. They thought it was an allergy, some kind of reaction, but that wasn’t it. They couldn’t help me.

“My parents figured it out before everything finished. Nobody they knew had ever had that happen before. Nobody. They were just scared, Paul. You can’t blame them.”

They took her to California on the advice of some of the other landlocked mer. By that point she was having trouble walking; the patches had spread significantly on her legs, and they were itchy and painful. The Pacific waters were supposed to be soothing.

“I walked into the ocean, but I couldn’t go back.”

“Couldn’t go back?”

“I couldn’t go… Paulie…”

She’d transformed. Reverted, really. It shouldn’t have been possible. Her mother blamed not having been landlocked when Victoria had been born, as if that wasn’t common. Her father had suspected that her birthmark was a sign of some congenital abnormality, but there wasn’t ever any consensus. It didn’t matter. The damage was done.

She didn’t walk again for a full year. Her parents pulled her out of school and bought a one-story house in California, with a tall fence and a pool. She had a wheelchair for getting around the house, and every weekend, her father would take her out in a motorboat off the coast and let her swim there for hours.

Her career was over, of course. No more singing, no more modeling. Her parents’ marriage was over. Her mother remarried a human and moved back to New York, had another little girl when Victoria was thirteen, a black-haired, blue-eyed baby without a blemish. By that point, Victoria had clawed her way into staying human for six, sometimes seven hours at a time. Pretty miraculous, Paul thought-- at that age, he’d never tried to stay human for more than two or three. She’d hoped to maintain the form long enough to go back to school. But there was something else. She was hoping her mother would look towards her again.

By fourteen she didn’t need the chair anymore. By fifteen she was back in school, generally only going mer late at night sometimes in the pool. She would take the boat out herself now on occasion, but she never went far enough out to find any other mer.

By sixteen she had begged her way back to New York to live with her mother. She’d stayed there for years, apart from a short shoot for The Virginian when she was visiting her father over the summer in California. She’d tried to piece things back together. Forge something. Push herself back onstage, back under the lights.

“It wasn’t just for my mother,” she protested. “It was partly for her, but partly for me, too. If I could be onstage again, without worrying, that would mean everything really was normal. I wanted that so badly.”

“Why did you come out to New York? To the mer, I mean. I would’ve thought…” he trailed, shrugging helplessly. “It ruined things for you. Why would you ever go looking for us?”

“Because I’d never done it before. And because I thought there might be something out there for me.” Victoria rubbed the side of her face. “I don’t mean I wanted to live out in one of the ships. But my parents never really told me much about the mer. They treated it like something I had to get over. It… it was a burden on them. It was like if they didn’t acknowledge it, it didn’t exist past me.

“It was Omar that finally told me where the New York mer lived. He said they were very poor, and not to expect much. The day I met you was only the second time I’d really gone that far out into the sea. You know the rest, Paul.”

She was holding out on him. There were details she hadn’t given him, things she’d smoothed over. He was sure of it. He wondered. Maybe she’d liked him, at first, because his deformity was on the outside. Because he was as alone and despised as she had surely been. And yet he wished she’d had the guts to tell him. He thought he would have understood. It could have brought them closer together in those wild, scant days when they were courting.

Were they courting now?

Would they ever court again?

His eyes traveled back to that pink mark on her skin, so akin to the purple patches that never had disappeared from his own, and something deep within his spine shivered. She didn’t know. What Ace had said, about a mutation, about having trouble landlocking… she didn’t know at all.

“How long do you have, Victoria?”

“Until?”

“Until you landlock.”

“I don’t know. It’s ten years, right? So I must’ve done it already.” Her mouth lifted up, trembling only a little. “Let’s not talk about that anymore. Show me the rest of your apartment. Fill me in on everything.”

His mouth met hers on instinct, arms wrapping around her, and she clung to him as though he were driftwood in a storm.

#kiss the band #kiss fanfiction #mermaid au #paul stanley

2 notes · View notes

moviereviews101web · 11 days

Text

The Any Bully (2006) Movie Review

The Ant Bully – ABC Film Challenge – Action – Q (Queen) – The Ant Bully – Movie Review Director: John A Davis Writer: John A Davis, John Nickle (Screenplay) Cast (Voice Talents) Paul Giamatti (Sideways) Nicolas Cage (The Rock) Julia Roberts (Pretty Woman) Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada) Zach Tyler Eisen (Avatar: The Last Airbender) Plot: After Lucas Nickle floods an ant colony…

View On WordPress

#2006 #Action #The Ant Bully

0 notes

dejufuniverse · 28 days

Text

Duits OMT loog publiek voor over covid, mondkapjes en lockdowns

MAATREGELEN HADDEN NIETS MET WETENSCHAP TE MAKEN

Datum: 30 maart 2024 Mens en Macht

Tione de Graaf

Het Duitse OMT heeft covid-19 bewust gevaarlijker voorgesteld dan het was en lockdowns aanbevolen terwijl men wist dat die kwalijker gevolgen zouden hebben dan covid zelf. Het ‘Covid Crisis Team’, zoals het in Duitsland heette, wist ook dat covid-19 minder doden veroorzaakte dan een stevige griepgolf en dat mondkapjes niet beschermen tegen virusoverdracht. Toch hebben de wetenschappelijke adviseurs van de Duitse regering de zwaarst mogelijke maatregelen aanbevolen. Daarbij zijn ze mogelijk geïnstrueerd door de politiek.

Een en ander blijkt uit documenten die zijn vrijgekomen na een Woo-verzoek en die tot ophef hebben geleid in Duitsland.

Het Robert Koch Institut (RKI) in Berlijn, dat te vergelijken is met het RIVM in Nederland, heeft meer dan 2500 pagina’s vrijgegeven met documenten over vergaderingen van het Duitse ‘Covid Crisis Team’ die plaatsvonden tussen januari 2020 en april 2021. Dit na langlopende rechtszaken die zijn aangespannen door het kritische magazine Multipolar, dat in januari 2020 werd opgericht.

Veel passages in de documenten zijn zwart gelakt. Reden waarom Multipolar op 6 mei bij de rechtbank in Berlijn volledige vrijgave zal eisen. Toch valt al voldoende af te leiden uit de passages die wél leesbaar zijn. Ook de reguliere media hebben de documenten intussen ontdekt. Zo bracht publieke omroep ZDF op 24 maart op zijn website een verrassend kritisch artikel, met de kop De explosieve corona-protocollen van het RKI.

Eén rode draad in de documenten lijkt te zijn dat covid-19 gevaarlijker werd voorgesteld aan het Duitse publiek dan het RKI wist dat het was. Op 16 december 2020 bijvoorbeeld, aan het begin van de tweede langdurige Duitse lockdown, werden lockdowns in Afrika besproken en opgemerkt dat die “gevolgen hebben” die “deels erger zijn dan de gevolgen van covid zelf”. Op 19 maart 2021 werd benadrukt dat “covid-19 niet vergeleken moet worden met griep, omdat normale griepgolven meer mensen doden, hoewel covid-19 om andere redenen zorgwekkend is”. De experts van het RKI stelden ook dat de FFP-2 mondkapjes, die in Duitsland op veel plaatsen verplicht waren en ostentatief werden gedragen door Angela Merkel en haar collega’s, nutteloos waren.

Veel aandacht gaat uit naar één intrigerende passage in de notulen van medio maart 2020. Op dat moment had covid-19 in Duitsland nog de pandemische risicobeoordeling “matig”. Echter: voorbereidingen waren afgerond om de risicobeoordeling op te schalen naar “hoog” zodra iemand daartoe het signaal zou geven. Wie die “iemand” was, is niet bekend, want de naam is weggelakt. Er zijn aanwijzingen dat het zou gaan om de toenmalige Duitse minister van Volksgezondheid Jens Spahn, of misschien wel om de ‘eindbaas’ van destijds: Angela Merkel zelf.

Op 17 maart was het blijkbaar zo ver en besloot het RKI plotseling, zonder duidelijke gronden, het covid-risico op te schalen naar “hoog”. Hiermee ontstaat het beeld van een politiek besluit, bedoeld om het publiek angst aan te jagen en zo de weg vrij te maken voor de ingrijpende coronamaatregelen.

Opvallend is dat de ZDF op 25 maart haar berichtgeving over de notulen van maart 2020 heeft genuanceerd. Volgens de publieke omroep ontkent het RKI dat het een politicus was die het signaal “hoog” gaf. Het zou zijn gegaan om een RKI-functionaris, maar diens naam is niet geopenbaard. Eén van de oprichters van Multipolar, journalist Paul Schreyer, reageerde dezelfde dag scherp op de website van het magazine. Hij verwijt de ZDF vervalsing van hun berichtgeving en benadrukt nog eens dat de plotselinge risicobeoordeling “hoog” geen enkele wetenschappelijke onderbouwing had: “De bewering dat het RKI de opschaling deed – en daarmee de basis legde voor de lockdown en noodtoestand – op basis van wetenschappelijk overleg is niet langer houdbaar. De opschaling vond abrupt plaats, zonder gedocumenteerde discussie en overleg, in opdracht van een naamloze speler.”

0 notes